Let me preface this with, I am no electrician, nor do I have knowledge in electrical diagraming or flow chart.
I have not had a static issue in the past. But here lately, I’m guessing it may have something to do with the weather, for some reason when working at my SPXXL my hair is occasionally standing up.
I have seen where people have wrapped bare wire around the length of the hose and have the end touching the cement floor. But to get a proper ground could you just stick it in the ground hole of an outlet?
Do you have a copper plumbing pipe near enough to connect to the ground wire? I often seen this done, but I’m not an electrician either and can’t say for sure that it’s the right thing.
The safe way to do that would be to get a replacement plug end, and just hook up the ground wire. If the wire is bare (no insulation), you should try to tape off the other two contacts, “just in case”.
You may as well have written this in Greek or ancient Myan.
As I stated in the first post. “I am no electrician, nor do I have knowledge in electrical diagraming or flow chart.”
You can run a wire along your dust hose. My hose has a wire spiraling around it. I bared the spiral wire and connected the wire that I was going to run with it. Secured the wire to the hose with zip ties. Secured the wire to my dust collector’s metal case. This took care of the majority of my issues. If it continues I will be happy to coach you further if you would like.
If you have this kind of J box you can just connect ground wire to the outside of it and you’ve got the same ground.
People generate a lot of static electricity, so if you make a static ground, you should put a small plate by your CNC and touch it when you come up to your CNC. Yes, you may get a little shock. You could also buy a static discharge wristband this would keep you from discharging straight into your CNC and possibly hurting it.
If you aren’t comfortable with any of the above you can literally get a bucket of wet dirt, put a conductor rod in there, and hook a wire from hose to the rod. Just be sure the dirt stays moist.
On the Shapeoko the two side rails have 42 ohms to ground. Cross rail is not grounded.
If you need a ground you could pull it from one of these bolts. This is safe for you (per UL and national electric Code) and the equipment.
Now I could get into Bonding vs Equipment ground but I will not.
Shapeoko electronics are safe. I am not saying the software could not get a bump on occasion. If this is worrying you get the wrist strap and clip it to the side rail.
The machine frame is sorta grounded through the control box, the PSU brings mains ground through to 0V on the controller which is then bonded via the heatsink to the frame rail.
As you spotted, frequently the X beam on the older plastic wheel and belt machines, has no real path to ground and can build up a significant charge which causes disconnects when it finally discharges, same with the Z assembly where the router is double insulated and the case not grounded.
Just running a ground up the drag chain from one of the Y rails to the X rail and Z carriage sorts most of this.
If you have a VFD spindle then that should be grounding the Z carriage, if the shell of the VFD spindle is not grounded then you have bigger problems than some static.
The anodized bits are very electrically insulated, For example, there is no continuity between the Y linear bearing rails to the t-slots of the bed of my Pro4.
Now that I know that, I’ll be adding more ground straps.
My understanding is the (bare) wire should be on the inside of the hose, as that’s where the static is generated. To get the wire out of the hose (so you can connect it to a ground point) poke a small hole or have it exit under a hose clamp connection point.
